Scalability Testing
and Cloud Migration
projects

Application Performance and Moving to the Cloud

Cloud computing is on the radar of many companies – many are in the planning stages, some are in the process of deploying private clouds, and still others are already using clouds. The promise of cloud scalability, flexibility and agility are driving cloud adoption. However, as IT staff moves their applications to the cloud, many of them are finding that cloud infrastructure scalability does not automatically eliminate application performance issues or the need to do performance testing of new cloud applications.

Early cloud adopters are also discovering that cloud application load and stress testing is not the same as testing applications in traditional environments. They are finding that applications cannot always scale up, even when running on scalable cloud infrastructures. This becomes clear when applications that performed adequately in traditional environments “break” when subjected to higher loads and dynamic scalability in the cloud.

Cloud performance testing must “test the limits” by ensuring that cloud infrastructure elasticy is matched with applications that scale well. Figure I summarizes several reasons why load testing is important for cloud applications.